Posts in "War on Drugs"

The illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity, and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingly mad and dangerous world. – Carl Sagan

As a result of tabling all week for our "End the Drug War" event, YAL at Auburn University collected 66 new sign-ups and had a total meeting attendance of 58 on Thursday, February 12. We hosted Dr. Mark Thornton to speak about the "War on Drugs." Dr. Thornton is a Senior Fellow at the Mises Institute, a retired economics professor, the Book Review Editor of the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, and a published author. After Dr. Thornton's lecture, "End the Drug War" materials were given as prizes for a jeopardy game.

According to the Pew Research Center, 54% of people believe that the use of marijuana should be legalized. Colorado, Alaska, Oregon, and Washington State have all legalized recreational use of the drug, while 23 states and Washington, D.C., have legalized medical use. Yet 1.5 million individuals were arrested in 2013 on non-violent drug charges.

How will this change? Dr. Thornton wishes to create a truly legal, free market that would promote the eventual rise of competitive large industries to improve product quality and create standardization.

In a free market, product attributes would develop (i.e. a method of production, filtration, and packaging) and the potency would become consistent. There is no standard in the black market; the potency of marijuana has increased from .4 of 1% in the 1970s to over 10% today. Some samples are sold at 60%, and some are even close to 100% potency of THC. A free market would promote a standard potency to insure consistency of doses.

Individual rights are key in the libertarian philosophy. We do not believe that the government’s role is to protect us from ourselves. If we are not free to decide for ourselves what to put in our bodies, we are not really free. (Anyway, no one has ever died from marijuana consumption.)

State Senator Frank Niceley was the key speaker at the event. YAL members were not the only ones in attendance. The event drew a variety of people to hear Senator Niceley speak. Local farmers were also there to find out more about the legislation. Many in Tennessee are expecting that hemp farming will generate many jobs in Tennessee. The Hemp Industries Association sent a representative to attend the event.

When Governor Bill Haslam signed the bill into law, Tennessee immediately received national attention. As the Tenth Amendment Center noted, there was one word that made the legislation the strongest in the entire country. That one word is "shall." The bill reads, “The department shall issue licenses to persons who apply to the department for a license to grow industrial hemp.”

Many topics were discussed as the event went on. Senator Niceley told how far Tennessee has come in the past couple years. Federal Agents have been raiding businesses selling raw milk for the past couple years, especially in California. This won’t happen in Tennessee thanks to the work of Senator Niceley. Another topic discussed was Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO’s). Students had many questions and concerns about GMO’s at the event.

The event succeeded at educating students and members of the community. Young Americans for Liberty also received media coverage from WATE News in Knoxville along with the Daily Beacan, a campus newspaper.

Young Americans for Liberty and Students for Sensible Drug Policy @ College of Charleston had a very productive two weeks tabling on behalf of the cause of educating CofC students on the social and economic consequences of the War on Drugs.

Our YAL team held a "pot brownie" bake sale in which we sold regular brownies out of pots. This attracted a lot of questions and puzzled looks from students on campus, which opened up

Baylor University YAL's discussion unit on the War on Drugs culminated in an event last Wednesday focusing on mandatory minimum sentencing.

Our members constructed a prison cell and had Baylor students take pictures in it, holding profiles of people sentenced using mandatory minimums. The profiles, which were structured like booking cards, also gave an overview of why our club was there, what mandatory minimums are, and where students could find more information.

We set up our table and passed out End the Drug War swag, books, and pocket constitutions. This was a visually striking event that brought a lot of interested students over to our table to talk to YAL members about an issue that has not received much attention at Baylor.

We at Young Americans for Liberty at the University of Southern California (YAL @ USC) continued our Constitution Week activism with a focus on free speech and police brutality. We started the morning with a Free Speech Ball, made possible with an activism grant from the national office. Thank you donors for making this happen!

It was great! So many people loved the idea and unlike a traditional Free Speech Wall, we were able to pack everything up in a small backpack. It's basically like tabling on wheels as we were able to roll the ball around a fairly large area of campus. Students loved it as they wrote many positive and affirming messages, as well as a few naughty ones. Megan Wilburn, a field representative with the Leadership Institute, was with us to help with the activism. Big thanks to her for lending a hand!

That evening, we continued our police brutality awareness campaign with a talk entitled "Ferguson, Police Militarization, and the Power of the Camera" featuring Reason Magazine's Zach Weissmueller. Weissmueller covered the Mike Brown shooting protests in Ferguson.

Welcoming a multitude of prospective members, Appalachian State University’s Young Americans for Liberty chapter kicked off the fall semester last Wednesday, August 27 with a pizza social and lecture on the fallacies of America’s War on Drugs.

Ruling out the customary few famished freshman that showed up just for the meal, it’s still safe to assume that our numbers and enthusiasm will greatly increase this year with the aide of our dedicated core from last year. After curing our appetites with a little help from Dominoes and mingling with potential members, we were treated to an outstanding lecture from Appalachian’s Dr. Matt Robinson, Professor of Government and Justice Studies, specializing in crime theory, the War on Drugs, the Injustices of the Criminal Justice System, and a variety of other fields.

Currently authoring his 18th book focusing on race and crime, Dr. Robinson is most notable for his 2007 book titled Lies, Damned Lies, and Drug War Statistics, which analyzes falsified claims made by the Office of National Drug Control Policy. The book specifically looks at

Although this Spring semester was quite a chilly one, that did not stop YAL members at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH from spreading the message of liberty on our campus.

Our first event in early February offered a way for students to warm up while learning about liberty. At this event, called "Why LiberTEA," we set-up in a highly-frequented building on campus, where we handed out Why Liberty books (donated to us graciously by our friends at Students for Liberty) and served up hot cups of tea.

For students who had time to stop at the table, we offered a political quiz to take and plot themselves on a Nolan chart. Not surprisingly, many more students were liberty-leaning in their political mindset. We handed out over 200 books and got several new sign-ups!

On April 24, YAL at the University at Albany held a panel featuring two speakers, Alex Portelli, and Greg Kerber. The event was a success despite the university denying our chapter the ability to actually table for it. Word of the event was spread by word of mouth and online advertisement and turn out was around 25 people!

The panel started with each speaker being able to tell their story of how government affected them in their youth and how they became a libertarian. For Portelli, growing up in the city of Albany and being let down by the public school system and eventually becoming a victim of the War on Drugs opened his eyes to the decay and poverty in the city around

Saturday April 5, Guilford College Young Americans for Liberty hosted an End the War on Drugs Paint Party. The event was held at Serendipity, Guilford College’s yearly live music festival and street fair held on the Guilford campus in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Guilford YAL's table had an array of face paint, spray-in hair color, sparkly faery dust, candy, and Constitutions. We also passed out souvenir stickers to fit the End the War on Drugs Paint Party theme.

As a club, we knew we were taking a slight risk with the “Legalize it!” stickers. And we are aware some individuals may consider the language choice implicates a lax attitude towards drug use and thus deem it negative for the movement. However, one thing I have learned through my activism training is the importance of language choice, venue, and audience demographics.

In fact, language, venue, and audience are the key dynamics to a successful event. And this elemental triad worked together perfectly for Guilford YAL’s End the War on Drugs Paint Party. The event was by far one of our most successful endeavors and we would argue our chapter managed to discover the ideal libertarian recipe for music festivals and street fairs.